


My Flying Mates, My Crawling Friends

by oroc



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: AU - alignment swap, Age Difference, Anal Sex, Arkham Asylum, Brainwashing, Consensual Mind Control, Love Potion/Spell, M/M, No Man's Land (DCU), Psychotropic Drugs, Self-cest, crime syndicate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2015-12-06
Packaged: 2018-05-05 09:06:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5369636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oroc/pseuds/oroc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tim 'interns' at Miskatonic's School of Psychology while trying to get back home. Carefully. In the meantime, he has needs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Flying Mates, My Crawling Friends

**Author's Note:**

> Tim has just lost Kon, after the end of 'Infinite Crisis'. This other Gotham has just been declared safe after 'No Man's Land'.

This Universe was more easily categorized than the original Syndicate dimension Tim was familiar with.

"Rest now, little rodent. Always drifting off in your own head, aren't you? Brushing your little paws. Cleaning up ever so meticulously."

For the most uncomfortable reason, too. It was Bruce in the Owl suit, Tim was certain of it. His voice was too precise a match to miss. Worst-case scenario was either Bruce could get to and track him easily right now, or he's been compromised to believe that he's in this dimension at all, and is going to start fighting his family.

"It's what you do when you spend your life in filth. Now that you're here, little rodent, in this nice clean space, I want you to sort through your memories of today - from getting up, to your evening rituals, to your... Placement here."

The parallels were almost exact, if a couple of years behind Tim. After Tim performed the day's Lazarus experiment and got hit with a beam of Luthor's, he found himself on Park Row and in another fight. Some recon, then into an apartment that should have been abandoned but Jervis Tetch snuck a hat on him the second he was through the window. A red crown. His identity here seemed to be one of the royals in 'Through the Looking Glass'. No hearts anywhere, and the hench-persons had odd haircuts, mostly bowls. Pawns.

The more heavily armed ones were specialised name pieces, by the hats. They filled the room, silently keeping guard - probably going through conditioning in their head over and over and breathe and "Count from zero up to ten..."

Bats were swapped for Owls, obviously, Owlman, Owlgirl, Owlmobiles. Their Robin was Rat, though, not Talon, which was creepy as all Hell. Tim had no lead on what Babs was here, but there were 'Raptors', a Predator and a White Shrike. Tim does as he's told, as he doesn't have a choice, and...

"I'm not who you think I am, Tetch."

"You've said that before. I've seen you successfully lie to Owlman, lad, you'll need more than a different colour scheme to convince me." Tetch flexed his feet - his bare feet. Pyjamas. Fuck's sake. He was much, much more physically fit than the Tetch Tim knew, though. Not taller, the shoes he had on earlier didn't have heels. It made some kind of sense. This Tetch was all about the right mindsets, and probably conditioned himself into the personality and body he wanted just like he did these soldiers.

"The you I know is the Mad Hatter." Tetch twitched under his sleeping mask, and Tim continued to describe the last case, Hatter's sale of teenagers as slaves to --

"All the Owls would know that, rodent."

"Mind control me into telling you the truth, then, ass. It's your job to do things like that."

"I'm not entirely sure I should --"

"I just consented. Do it." Tetch's fingers - oddly dexterous compared to the Hatter's - ran over the ruby on his sceptre, two rings, and a part of Tim fell numb. "I'm Robin of 'Batman and'. From a few years after you, if we're running in parallel. Superboy will die in about a year." Even using their given names for this dimension felt like a lie. Tetch growled, mildly, and reversed his motions over the gem.

Insipid bunch, these Miskatonics.

"Welcome in, Robin. I'm the Red King. Terribly sorry about all that, I'm just..." Yawn. "Naturally suspicious." No, you're not.

"I need to get back to my dimension. I can protect your systems from the Owls' hacker while I'm here in return. Is Luthor--?"

"In Ultraman's gulag, yes, but we're not disorganised. I'm certain we could set it up in a couple of months."

-

Crane was creepier in this dimension, naturally. The little heart-mask, with the antenna. And a little trunk under his chin, that whipped up to spray the gas. Tim was certain he'd seen toxins like that used by Ivy, but then this is an hallucinogen, not quite a love potion. The strength of each dose determined intensity, but the experience was always the same. It started with the sight of your loved ones or items, hallucinated blended memories in some kind of loving fantasy, flowing towards a general feeling of complete love - a kind of manic fugue.

'Vera' is, of course, utterly terrifying, but not very different from Ivy. They got on well. Still had the toxins, but she was less shy about lignifying her own tissues. They had a little photo framed in her office from when she punched Superwoman out, and a group photo of Vera and all her children during No Man's Land. 

The college was a fortress thanks to the tireless, possibly counter-productive efforts of those within. Most of Vera's plant-walls regenerated harder after burning, and they were laced with kryptonite, just like the soil. (The other Ultraman was different.) Traffic between Arkham Island and the city was strictly controlled, and subject to frequent bombings, but it'd proven a good haven from the Owls now and then.

The Owls are obviously farming them for their technology, but the arrangement is less horrifying than Arkham's cryptic, constant escapes. That Bruce could kill them all without spending more than half an hour about it is not debatable.

Tim sneaks about and records what he sees, because given how ridiculous the comparisons have been so far, some of this intel could be useful.

Lovebug and Red King have been collaborating for some time. That much Tim knew, but Crane had been creating and keeping a steady supply of the anti-love gas that had nearly killed Jason and Tetch was never really out of the loop as to what he was doing. Or without his own supply of Crane's gas. That was new.

The older orphans from the earthquake stayed with Vera, semi-secretly, and they had all been immunised to most Miskatonic/Arkhamite toxins. Vera uses them as informants, but for all Tim knows Ivy just funded them going to college and convinced them to put weight behind the correct ecological causes.

Hugo Strange was still not a good psychologist. 'Good ol' Gator' (fuck's sake) played in the water, and seemed to be the one to make the most regular trips to the City, besides Kiln. The Miskatonics had no damn clue how the clay-people work either, or how to tell if someone wasn't Kiln besides standard tests detailed in John Carpenter's _'The Thing'_.

The big difference was Joker. Jokester wasn't involved in Miskatonic University and had almost never set foot inside the building except back when Owlman was using the old Asylum building as a torture chamber. Harlequin had been resident, _sometimes_ , but seemed to work more as an informant or - God forbid - an actual staff member for the actual college than a super-vigilante. That suited Tim just fucking fine, because a sanctified clown would be too much.

The other Owlman - Thomas Jr. - didn't have a rogues' gallery like this because he killed his enemies when they revealed themselves. Bruce had the no-kill rule no matter what his code was.

It was obviously useless to catalogue the maniacs continuously without a long-term plan for transport back.

-

"Mr. Robin, this mask has thermal imaging. Come on down." Tim hopped down onto the bench, silent. "Good, you have a gas mask on already. Pass me the phial on your left."

"Why are you just accepting me, Crane?"

"Because none of the Owls can outdo that function of the crowns yet. They're never alone now, you see, so they just smash the hats or whatever they're struck with." The air was heady even with the fan on. Tim wondered what love... 'love' must smell like.

"Are you implying something?"

"Are you?" Crane switched the fan on. Whatever he was making was made. "I know what it is like to miss family, Mr. Robin."

"Academically."

"And for all you know, I'm interrogating you, like you're interrogating us. Shall I say what I know, save you the trouble?"

Tim shrugged and his cape slipped closed.

"My gas would show you... Nightfang, first." Fuck's sake. "He brought you into this. He's closest to you, besides that he's everyone's favourite, despite that you're more detective than acrobat. You see yourself collaborating with him and you're in Heaven. We all see it."

"Mmhm. We expect exchange between yourself and Tetch. Is Isley involved in what you do?"

"Not always. Our Vera isn't as fond of outright mind control as your Ivy, or even dependency. Like Jervis' squads, her soldiers come for strength and discipline and stay for that. Much more well-behaved than the police, too, aren't they?"

"They're all part of the same gangs in my world."

"You're wondering why I don't blanch at a madder me."

"'Madder'?"

"Oh..." Crane took off his mask. Full cheeks. He ate properly here. There was even some muscle definition. Definitely Tetch's influence. Was Tetch slow-cooking the Arkhamites, affecting them subliminally? Another sweep of the Arkham systems was due. "Don't. I'm a professional."

"So is Red King, and I saw him retch when I said 'Hatter'."

"The Hatter's worse than the Scarecrow," Crane said eventually, brewing them tea in the staff room. "My obsession is taken to its logical conclusion here, isn't it? Just like the other me. But Jervis spent his life making everyone around him happy and strong, and he made a fortune once the doping scandal took off. They both think they deserve the control they take, and the thought of thinking you deserve what the _Hatter_ does would make anyone retch."

"And you're unethical to the same degree as Scarecrow."

" _I_... am more fun?"

"No."

-

They had files on Selina, but not her name. Foxwoman. Not 'Vixen'? She kept the same territory, and cooperated with the Owl as reluctantly as Tim's Selina and Bruce did, for the same reasons.

Selina was a serial killer, stealing hearts. Healthy, young hearts. Livers and kidneys, too, but she seemed to like the challenge and rib-breaking effort of stealthy heart theft. She wasn't even selling most of them. Was she eating them? Not if she took them from the lower East side and still lived.

It was unclear to the Miskatonic crew if she killed and mutilated for sport or profit. It was obviously both, but they were giving her the benefit of the doubt, because they were such nice people.

Fuck's sake. Tim went back to Jonathan's notes.

-

Someone used the word 'nymph' and Tim didn't turn up for a bit.

-

Two months in, Tim had nearly assembled the portal technology. He had to rely on the Miskatonics' communication methods for a little while - had to re-immunise himself to different toxins, since the medical literature suggested no huge difference in human physiology between what Tim knew and this dimension's.

Rat let a smuggled bag of leishmaniatic sandflies into the kids' hospital instead of directly contaminating the blood packs. Tim managed to roundly exterminate the flies, most of which had already died in transit. If he'd just contaminated the blood, it might not have worked out so well for Tim. Probably deliberate. Was Bruce going to let him in?

He missed the Cave. Missed Alfred. Missed being shot down. Missed the showers.

In the vents above Crane's office, Tim writhed in gnostic spasms and squeezed himself to some level of pain, silent so he could hear how perfect Crane and Tetch sounded murmuring about him, tones of mild concern blooming in his brain like sexual thrush.

He ate himself, which gave another dose. Fear gas was venereal? Dick held him, he always held him. Tim had enough of the gas to last him until his portal in Fries' lab was charged up. He could smell Dick. He might have made a synthetic copy of this. He knew the molecule. Maybe it was an antidote to the fear-gas?

Tim needed help.

A thin crown slipped over his head.

-

They never removed his mask. Why didn't they remove his mask? It didn't matter. He was asleep. His King was there. Red sheets. He was completely safe. It was the worst feeling.

They hadn't performed surgery on Tim or Tim would know. They cleansed it out - of course Crane had the antidote.

Crane had the antidote. Tim had accomplished something, learned something. Bruce would never know. Bruce would never speak to him again. Tim was --

Awake.

He reached for the vial - well, he would have, but he didn't. Tim felt himself going through the motions of dosing himself with Crane's gas again and didn't do anything of the sort, it wouldn't have been proper. Tim was in company. He'd miss the portal if he could only step diagonally. But fairy chess had a lot of grids. In and out of spheres. Going in and out, he could have reached it. Fries was still out there, charging up the portal.

"He's still in the game, Jervis. It's been too long."

"Shhh," Jervis whispered, finger on the proboscis of Crane's mask. It was a new mask: now the two little compound lenses were shaped like half hearts on either side of his nose. Hinted either at a heart theme or a broken heart theme. Fuck's sake. "More tea, vicar?"

"Please." Crane was... Had his brain structure been altered at all? Did they put him in the visualiser while he was out, and _seen_ what he was seeing of Dick? Did they know his name? Had they heard him say it? "Please." Tim sipped. They never wrote a program they couldn't reverse, they promised. "Please."

"Put the tea down and sleep now, Robin. Deep down. Good boy... Now, you can come up with more reasons you're a terrible person, and we'll shoot them down for you when you wake up. Jonathan is very sorry."

"I am," Jonathan mumbled, on the other side of the bed. Tim had Jervis' sleeping mask on, presumably feeding more information in. Tim's hand wandered to his stomach and rested there, and he moaned, he didn't want to - and he didn't. "You'll be purged of the effects by Tuesday," Jonathan continues. He was unconscious for how long? "Sorry, Tuesday the third of August, this year. It's currently Saturday."

Tim slept soundly on red sheets and purple cushions and against a big tree, the King beside him, murmuring all the good reasons to sleep, because he slowed down, because the King had on him a persuasive, diplomatic argument for sleeping, and it wouldn't do to just _ignore_ him.

-

Tim knew people were all different shapes before they grow up. You couldn't always tell from a picture of the first thing a person is what the last look they'd have was. They would lose bits of themselves and grow new parts, new personalities. Half of marine biology was, at one time, closing the life cycle between the strange snowflakes in seawater you swallow and the bulky crabs and snails and fish they grow up into. With entomology, it wasn't always so difficult, but the changes were still there.

Your swimming predator in your park's pond could, for all your untrained eye knew, become a malarial mosquito when it grew up. Or a dragonfly. Or a planthopper.

Tim dreamed, while sober, of pleated, painted leather shirts. As individuals, the Nymphs didn't have much identity except by their patronage, their parentage and their issue. They were almost never named. They were a group, a family, only relative to each other. Dick was Robin. The perfect Robin. Jason was Robin. The perfect, strong Robin. Tim was Robin. The Bat who wanted to be perfect, like Robin.

There were two reasons why Bruce didn't act on the Robin on his territory. The Owls saw Tim as a twin Tim. They didn't want to mess up their timeline and they didn't want to hurt their teammate's look alike, especially if he had two years of experience on Rat. The Miskatonics' view was... almost the same. Tim saw a strange affection from them to Owlman's most sadistic henchman, probably intellectual, probably because Tim was exactly as emotionally manipulable as would be expected of a severely traumatised teenager.

Cass would never look at him again except through silver-white lenses. Tim would never meet the Joker again.

Tim forgave Jonathan. How could he not? It was the only reasonable action to take. Holding onto anything negative would just corrupt him, make him vulnerable. Make him more like the other Tim, who was probably bound to feel the exact same way in two years' time.

Less than that now.

Tim was not precisely like Bruce. Even when his father died, he wasn't like Bruce. Even when Kon died, he wasn't like Bruce. Justice was not vengeance. The night was not vengeance. The best vengeance was health. Love. Safety. It was all right. Kon would probably come back. People like him always did. His dad - his dad was always going to die.

Waking up sober, Tim ripped the armour off his body as if the kevlar sheets wrapped around the ceramic plating had melted. He showered, drank water, ate food, took his antidote supplement, worked out and slept again. The times, precisely allotted, found jigsaw holds in Tim's mind the moment Jervis whispered them to him.

"Same thing happened with me," Tim said, coiled next to him. "You can't take anything that might affect your brain, or leave the rooms. No rules about jerking off, though, you know? And the bugging would put Daddy to shame. So we have to."

Tim agreed silently with his eighteen year-old self. Maybe Lovebug and Red King wouldn't be looking over the CCTV footage, since the last time would have involved spying on an underage boy?

Tim crossed his shins behind Rat's back and pulled him under the covers with little difficulty - there was a gym in his little Miskatonic apartment.

Rat had undressed too, down to the domino, making them identical but for Rat's brown mask to Tim's red. Maybe an inch of height, too, and quite a lot of muscle definition, thinking about it. Rat still had the spiked hair.

"Or fingering?" Tim felt his hole - Rat's finger over it - he wa too tight. What the Hell, it wasn't like Tim was going to give Rat anything he didn't already have. Neither family would want to interfere in coming events too much without knowing the consequences.

"Anything goes, Robin." Rat ducked in and lapped at Tim with very deliberate circles that kept --

"Slower!"

"Sorry, honey." What the fuck? Fuck's sake. Slower. Very - and that was the right bit, because Tim could relax into that, let Rat inside. He stopped holding on to the covers so hard, and rested the soles of his feet on Rat's bare belly. "Mmh." Rat pushed further in, loving his ass, loving the firmness and the taste of him. Tim had douched in the en-suite, of course. The rehab rooms were decked out well. Tim didn't want to think of their equivalent in Arkham. The Nymphs were supposed to be chased all the time, weren't they? Was the portal working?

"Ahh... Fuck me?" Tim grinned blankly down at Rat. The brown mask concealed almost nothing when you knew what to look for. Tim knew how big his toys were during (and just after) No Man's Land, when he still felt so self-conscious he was erasing the Batcomputer's records for the silicone mold was making. Before he knew how disappointed Bruce was when he did.

They both knew about the conversation they had about this exact scenario with Steph.

Rat slipped the black condom on. Tim had the right nanites installed after the last douche prior to entering this dimension to kill off any acquired microbiota, but it paid to be sure. After a process of lubing that felt a bit like a pointless formality, he slipped easily inside his older counterpart.

They folded into a squirming ball that squealed and lasted until Bruce walked in.

-

Tim returned, hand in Bruce's.

Selina was stealing jewels. Ivy was violating people's personal autonomy. Jonathan Crane and Jervis Tetch were insane and also scum. Everything was fine.

Tim explained to Steph what happened, and they laughed over it the third time they meet after Tim comes back. Tim had only been gone for five hours in his home reality.

Bruce heard Tim out, after Red King and Lovebug cordially handed over the majority of the pertinent information and surveillance records of Tim's time in Miskatonic.

Bruce watched them. He took Tim upstairs one morning, into the Regency room, and held him for hours.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'Neither Rat nor Bird' by Lekan Malik.


End file.
